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Thursday, July 10, 2008

He wrote: I'd like to know your opinion about JS2 ...

... and here I am.

My opinion about ECMAScript 4 is not that simple to explain.

I would like to have a language, whatever it is, that is powerful, truly natively cross browser, and widely adopted from every kind of device.

It seems I am talking about ActionScript, since Flash Player respects, aproximatly 90%, my desires, but I am not.

I "come" from Macromedia world, as a Certified ActionScript 2.0 Developer (no design guys, only pure AS2 OOP), and I have used, for years, Flash as production environment.

Looking at the little "JS2 monster" they are creating, I could smile, thinking about problems I had for those years with an environment that would like to be compatible with both old and new code, loads of unresolved bugs, and never perfectly cross browser ... we just have them, it is JavaScript, with its numerous implementations.

At the same time, I would love to see JavaScript 2 power, in a bytecode based VM, but what I do not want, is a partial implementation of this new language, as I do not hope in a JS3 project at all ( Macromedia style, every maximum 1 or 2 years a new language, so that nobody was really skilled and nobody knew perfectly the environment and language features itself ... welcome Adobe, and its hybrid Flash player that could do more, but only with Flex ... but it is only about marketing, isn't it? )

After 10 years or more, we are still "discovering" patterns and practices for a language born so far ( today, as example, another post about prototypal inheritance, using bad practices to perform simple, and logical, tasks - this is the state of general JS knowledge, 2008 )

Furthermore, as far as I know, Microsoft invested a lot of effort for its SilverLight pearl, a technology that, after years, is not that far from what Adobe, and Macromedia before, has done during these web evolution days and for long time.

I think, and it is only my humble opinion, that MS will never implement natively in its browser an open source VM, which purpose is to make Web more standard, at least for development, and more powerful for everyone:

You want more for your browser? You want SilverLight!

We would like to have canvas ( fast graphic? SilverLight ), standard behaviors, libraries which size could be 1/3, removing every single line IE dedicated ( fast and easy development? SilverLight ) ... but we still have attachEvent, old Array methods, and we know what else.

So, definitively, if JS2 will be the key to write once and run everywhere, without 3rd parts plug ins, without strict usage licenses, with more speed, more power, and capable to run in every device, I cannot wait that day ... but I am pretty much sure, that it is not close as I hope.

What about solving problems with ECMAScript 3rd edition, fixing everything, and in every browser? A dream, or better, an utopia!

So let's start to learn, to develop, and to fix, a new language :geek: